Modified
by Marshpelt
Summary: April is a girl with no life and no future. She wishes to get away from her life, and one day she gets her wish granted. But not in the way she expects and not because of her wish. Just a random idea that I started writing down. T for violence and gore
1. Prologue

**This has been done before. Actually it's been done to death but I've always wanted to write something where I take an ordinary person, set them up in an impossible situation, and let them run. It's amazing what can happen.**

**This story has been an idea floating around in my way-to-cluttered little brain for the better part of two years, so I finally gave up and started to write it down. And the words just kept coming.**

**So I'm thinking that I might as well put it out there for someone to see.**

**Also, I've read a ton of these stories and I'm writing this with one thing in mind. "What would I do?" Which means I am _not _and I repeat _not_ going to be writing a story where it's "Oh I've turned into a cat. I'm not freaked out by the fact that I have paws or a tail. I know how to use my claws. I can hunt and fight perfectly and everyone loves me. I know all the lingo. I'm not wondering what my family is thinking about me. Eating raw mice? No problem! I don't wake up screaming in the middle of the night, in shock because of how messed up this is."**

**I'm sorry if you've written something like that, but I hate those stories. So here, I'm going to try to address each and every one of those issues. And if I've forgotten anything, don't hesitate to tell me.**

**Onwards.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything.**

**Prologue**

Firestar paced fretfully back and forth in his moonlit den, his ginger fur gleaming in the half-light of the moon. The moon hanging, motionless in the sky was just past half full. The light cast shadows on the soft sand through the curtain of lichen and the ginger tom sat starring at the flickering darkness, deep in thought. Firestar sat up as another cat entered the small cave.

"You asked for me, Firestar?" The light tabby she-cat meowed.

"Yes. Have you had-"

"Any other signs?" She she-cat finished for him, "No, none other than the one when I visited the moonpool. A young cat, changed by Starclan, will join our clan."

Firestar pondered for a moment, "Changed to what? … From what?"

"I do not know. The rest of the prophecy was muddled," Leafpool closed her eyes for a moment, "There was a…a great roar of wind. I saw a young she-cat lying on the ground in a clearing… She was screaming in a language that I couldn't understand. There was a screech of fighting cats and the stink of blood and everything went black."

"What did this cat look like?"

Leafpool thought about it a moment, "I didn't really get a good look, it was so dark. No, that's not it. I saw her well but I can't remember. How strange."

"Strange indeed," Firestar repeated, "We must keep our eyes and ears open."

Leafpool turned to leave, and then paused and said, in a voice that was uneven, "There will come a time when one of your oldest enemies will save you, Firestar. An enemy from a distant memory of the past."

Firestar looked startled as the she-cat's voice smoothed again, "Take care. You will need to be wary. I do not know what is going to happen, but danger is coming… and soon."

**Pity that, my intro is longer than my prologue.**

**Yes, I know it's predictable so far, but I'm almost done with chapter 1 and I think it's going to be a little better than the prologue.**

**R&R?**


	2. Chapter 1

**Heys! Okay, I really don't know where I'm going with this story, but whatever! I'm finnaly done with my editing and re-editing of chapter one.**

**Chapter 1**

April felt herself descending slowly. There was roaring noise around her with howls mixed in as though someone had let loose a pack of rabid wolves during the superbowl. She tried to open her eyes but they seemed to be stuck shut. Even though her eyes couldn't open she could still see writhing shapes and shadows from behind her flickering eyelids. She smelled earth and a reek of blood as she fell. A clammy sweat broke out over her forehead and limbs. There was a metallic taste in her mouth and April felt a great rush of freezing wind around her, chilling her to the bone. Pain lashed through her and her limbs thrashed in a futile attempt to fend off the invisible torturer. A scream froze in her throat, unable to work itself out through her mouth.

A hissing voice whispered in her ear, "Take heed, you will find this in your future." Then the darkness attacked her five senses once more. Invisible knives raked themselves across her back and her howl of agony tore itself free of her throat.

Suddenly it stopped.

The noise and shapes faded to a whisper of what they had been. Her back ached but the pain was already trickling away. She managed to pry her eyes open, and found her face pressed into soft grass. The sweet scent filled her and she felt a soft breeze carry off the pain. April pulled herself to her knees, and then stood shakily.

As she looked around, April found that she standing at the edge of a forest, or was it a clearing in the middle of a forest? Whichever it was, she was facing a thick canopy of trees. She turned slowly and saw four enormous trees surrounding a massive boulder. There were still shadows, but a full moon and millions of stars floating in the clear sky made it easy to see. Her breathing eased and soon she found that she felt good, better than she had felt for a long time.

April slid forwards, her nightgown swishing around her knees. She could feel dewdrops under her feet, but they only felt cool, not bitterly cold. A breeze sprang up, delightfully fresh and clean, not harsh and bone chilling as she had expected and April felt her breath beginning to ease up.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flicker, a pinpoint of light, in a crevice under the rock. It was a tiny bluish-white light, like a star. It pulsed and, as she watched, she began to see more around it. The more she looked the more she saw. They were crowding little cracks in the rocks, shimmering from under tree roots, and gleaming from behind almost every blade of grass. Specks of fluorescent light shone from between trees and among the dew that tickled her bare feet. More lights appeared around her until April felt as if she were standing among the stars.

Before her eyes, the lights began to drift towards her. It took her a moment to realize that they were moving at all, then another to realize where they were heading. She was frightened for a moment, but in such a beautiful clearing who could ever stay frightened for long? She soon realized that the star-lights were not going to her after all, but an open stretch of grass to her right, not far from where she stood. The stars drifted and bobbed to the place and the grass flattened, as though swept by wind.

Then the stars joined.

It was like nothing she had ever seen before. The first two or three joined with a tiny spark of light that was hardly noticeable. Then the others began to join, a cascade of sparks falling into the air and disappearing. A rainbow of color spread slowly across the splash of starlight as it took form. April gasped and, not knowing why, stepped towards the light, as it formed into a cat, whose fur was filled with stars.

She couldn't really tell what it looked like, because of the light emanating from it, but just seeing it took her breath away. The shinning cat was large - larger than life - reaching the height of her waist, but it looked young, like a kitten that hadn't quite lost all its soft fluff. The cat looked at her and April's heart seemed to melt at the sight of the eyes. Deep green, and full of life, the eyes pierced through her and seemed to know her, seemed to turn her transparent and look into her mind and heart. The cat looked as though it were sitting, but April didn't think that it was touching the ground.

Then the cat spoke. It sounded like many voices coming from everywhere, yet nowhere at all. It took her several moments to realize that the cat was the one talking. Its mouth wasn't moving, but the light around it seemed to pulse and radiate at each word the cat spoke.

"April you have come." It said smoothly, dipping its head to her in a gesture of what April thought might be welcome.

"Erk-" said April, then, in a whisper asked, "Do I know you?"

"You are young and do not understand, but you will, given time. I know you as you know me." The cat blinked its green eyes, slowly, as it gave her a solemn stare of knowing. "Come, and embrace your destiny. Accept your fate."

"Um, uh, gah?"

April felt her feet moving, stumbling forwards, without her trying to move, almost as if her body was moving without her mind. The cat waited for her and then, as she reached it, it stood. Still uncomprehending, April kneeled by the cat and stretched out a hand.

She was still confused as she held her trembling hand, palm up, in front of the beautiful creature. She considered drawing her hand back, but decided against it, as her body didn't seem to be obeying half the things she told it to do. Her mind buzzing, she waited for the cat to do something.

She didn't have long to wait.

The silvery cat bowed its head solemnly and touched her palm with its nose.

With the soft touch of the cat's cool nose, a thousand images and sensations rushed into April's mind: Grass blowing against her, wind rushing past in great gusts, blood pounding in her veins, tall trees bending and swaying, a lake with sunlight glimmering on the surface, a mouse leaping away from her and disappearing, birds lifting from the trees. The feelings throbbed within her, clouding her vision, coming faster and more thickly until suddenly her vision was filled with stars.

She could hear the sound of many voices all speaking in unison, the cat's voice, but deeper and rougher, as the stars hung in front of her, steadily brightening.

April felt herself falling again as the voices whispered, "We give you the spirit of a cat. Starclan honors you as a member of our race."

April tried to shout, but her body seemed to be growing heavier as she began to plummet downwards.

Then there was one last whisper before everything was swallowed up by black, "Remember your destiny, _Dawnpaw_."

**For those of you who have voted on my poll, now you know what that was. XD It was all for this crappy story. Disappointed?**

**Anyway, I wanted the first chapter to be kind of wordy, a little more poetic than usual, a little more mysterious. I mean, if the first chapter is really good, people read the book, right? I have no idea. Whatever. I'm gonna stop trying to be intelligent now.**

**Review?**


	3. Chapter 2

**Humungous thanks to ****HuNgErRoSe101 for helping me with the idea for April's "disorder". I know this isn't exactly what you suggested, but without you the story would have sucked beyond words. Now I have something to work with, and that makes my story that much better.**

**Also thanks to all my reviewers, you guys are my motivation. Which means if you guys didn't care about this story at all I would **_**never**_** get **_**anything**_** done.**

**Chapter 2**

April woke sweating, tangled in her sheets. Sitting bolt upright, she gasped for air. She was shivering uncontrollably, and she rubbed her arms roughly, trying to get some circulation back into them. Eventually, she began to warm and the feeling came back into her arms and legs. Her breathing eased up and she glanced at the clock. Five o' clock, on the dot. April tried to calm herself by speaking quickly to herself, covering up any other thoughts, _Just a dream. I always did have an overactive imagination. A hell of a dream, but a dream all the same._

_Oh, really?_ A voice in the back of her mind said, _It felt real enough._

_Of course,_ she answered firmly, _It always feels real because it's a dream._

She knew it had only been a dream, because in the dream, she had been a whole person. In the dream, she had been able to speak.

April gathered her sheets around her, hugging her shoulders. Waking up was always the worst part of these sort of dreams. Waking up with words on the tip of her tongue and then remembering the cruel truth. Consciousness swallowed her words, shoved her into the depression that accompanied her condition.

She hadn't always been mute.

It had been a horrible accident, the same as the one that had killed her father and twin sister. The muscles in her larynx had been damaged and her vocal cords had been torn. The doctors had managed to save her life, but restoring her voice had been deemed impossible. Now, nearly three years later, her hand unconsciously touched the scar where the jagged piece of metal had torn open her throat.

Being unable to talk was a torture that April had never dreamed of before the accident. Learning to speak with her hands instead of her mouth had been difficult, but manageable. The flashbacks and nightmares were horrible. Waking up from the good dreams were worse.

What was the worst, though, were the pitying looks that she got in the hallways, the teachers that spoke to her in a patronizing voice, as though she were five years old. The counselors patting her hand and saying sweetly, "I know exactly how you feel, dear." Small children on the street crying when they saw the jagged scars on her face. The other kids at school skirting around her because they knew they wouldn't understand her, because of her scars, because she was different.

At times like these all April wanted to do was scream. _You don't know what it's like! You'll never understand me and I'll never have a normal life!_

In three seconds her life had been torn from her hands. Out of her control. Almost blinked out of existence. In the agonizing months to follow, she took back shreds of her old life. Finally she regained it as fully as she ever would - mutilated patchwork, a mockery, a shattered reflection of her old self.

And April hated every moment of it.

As sun began to lighten the sky, April slipped out of bed, shaking loose the sheets that had tangled around her legs.

_A weekend, thank God._ A day when nobody would remind her how painfully different she was. A day to herself, where she wouldn't need to talk to anyone, with hands or mouth. A day April could be alone. A day she might not wish to die.

April got ready quickly, before her mother woke up and slipped out the door, leaving a quick note, _Went to Lake. Be back later._

The lake was a summer camping spot for a lot of local families, but now, in the fall, it was quiet and empty. A few people went fishing there, but there wasn't much cause to go into the forest anymore. Since it was only maybe half an hour's walk from April's house, it was an almost regular thing for her to walk there in her time alone. April had always thought the lake had been aptly named, especially now that Sanctuary Lake had truly become one of her only sanctuaries, away from the rest of humanity.

The sun was beginning to burn away the clouds and morning mist by the time April reached the outer trees of the forest. She was about to head to her usual spot, but something stopped her. From where she was standing, the lake looked just like one of the images from her dream. A lake, glimmering in the weak sun, with a forest standing majestically next to it.

Her vision swam as though she was looking at a reflection in water and someone had dropped a stone. She found herself rushing towards the forest like an eagle, swooping down over the trees. The wind was stinging her eyes and whipping her hair. She slowed to a stop between the trees. Suddenly she caught a whiff of a strange smell. All of her senses were screaming _danger._ Then she glimpsed a flash of black and white fur. A voice rang in her head, "Look out!"

April blinked and she was back on the edge of the trees, on her knees with her hands clutching her head. Her breath came in gasps as she looked around, making sure no one had seen her.

She stood slowly, knees shaking and brushed herself off. When nothing else happened, she began to walk further into the trees, mind reeling. _What the heck was that? Is that common for people like me? Are hallucinations supposed to be that realistic? Why did I even dream about the lake?_ April ran through her mind for everything she'd ever heard about hallucinations. She'd had flashbacks before, but nothing this realistic and they were always about the accident. She shook her head, more confused than ever.

April began to walk again, and closed her eyes, weaving through the trees by memory until she came to the edge of the grassland. A small stream wound down the hillside to the lake. She jumped the stream and sat down on the grassy edge. This was her place. The place where she could be herself.

Suddenly the smell of earth filled her nostrils. A heavy weight was crushing her down, and panic filled her. She squirmed, trying to throw it off, but her face pressed into the dirt. A voice hissed in her ear, "You could never beat me. You know you can't win." Suddenly, a razor-sharp point, like a knife, drove into her neck.

A strangled cry fought to tear its way out through April's lips as she clutched at the scars on her throat. She was back on the grass by the stream, but her own memories rushed through her. She could feel the sharp metal ripping through her neck again, the warm blood gushing through her fingers. She choked and coughed, trying to clear her airway of the liquid, but she was drowning in her own blood. She tried to tear the metal from her throat, but her blood-slick fingers slipped and fumbled. She managed to pull the metal free and clasp her hands over the hole, but the blood kept pouring out. Her vision grew dark and foggy as everything seemed to spin around her.

Then it was over. She was on the grass again, clothes coated in mud as though she'd been thrashing about. April sucked in a deep breath, assuring herself that she could really breathe again, then let her muscles slowly relax and her head sink into the grass.

The second part of the vision had been straight from her own dreams, a memory of the crash that she relived over and over. April drew her knees to her chest, shuddering.

_What'll it take? _She thought to herself, _What'll it take to get some peace? Why am I even still alive if my mind is going to keep torturing me like this?_

She tipped over sideways and fell back into the grass, still hugging her knees and closed her eyes. A flash of light splashed the insides of her eyelids with color and she saw the sun sinking behind the hills, coloring the water of the lake a dazzling red and gold. This time April didn't recoil from the vision, instead surrendering to the peace of the images.

Still curled up tightly on the grass, April fell asleep.

**I ended this one a little differently from what I wanted to, but if I'd ended it the way I wanted to it would have been at least twice as long, so I stopped it here. Sorry for how late I was in posting a new chapter, but I'm back to working on my stuff again, since I'm taking a break from the rest of the craziness in my life.**

**Review?**


	4. Chapter 3

**Well, since nobody reviewed on the last chapter, I guess you've all forgotten that I exist, but I wrote this anyway and I'll keep posting as long as the motivation lasts. (And let me tell you, without anyone telling me to "Update already, You fool!" it won't last long). But I wrote this on some inspiration, so here it is.**

**Enjoy.**

**Chapter 3**

It was dark.

That was the first impression that April got when she woke up. The entire world had been drenched in darkness and the sweet smell of grass and earth.

She sat up abruptly. _Dream? Is it another dream?_ Her hand went to her throat automatically, feeling the scars, she opened her mouth, but there was no noise, _Not a dream then. I fell asleep._

April went to check her watch, and then remembered that she'd left it at home when she left for her hike. But she could guess that it was pretty late. It was dark enough that she couldn't see too far, what with the fog and clouds covering the moon. The grass was starting to collect tiny droplets of dew, looking like tiny jewels. She jumped up, spinning around, trying to remember the way back home. _Crap, Mom'll be really mad when I get home. She always worries whenever I'm out too late. What time is it anyway?_

April seemed to be in a different spot, or at least she hadn't remembered falling asleep at this particular part of the stream. Her eyes strained to see through the shadows, but no defining landmarks jumped out at her, nothing to tell her where she was, or how to get home.

_Okay,_ she thought, mouthing he words to herself, just for some comfort, _I'm okay. If I don't panic and keep my head, I can figure out where I am._ She scanned the muddy banks of the stream for footprints. None. She looked around her for a trail, broken branches or something to tell her which direction she'd come from. Nothing. She tried to peer through the branches at the moon to give her a sense of direction, but the moon, if it was even out, was hidden by the clouds.

_I guess if I go up the stream, I'll eventually get out of the forest, _April tried to rationalize, _Because I know there's people all around campsites and stuff._ It was a gamble, but it was the only option left to her, so April started hiking.

It was slow going, because she had to go around thickets of bushes and trees often and the ground was slowly becoming steeper. April kept looking for some sign of civilization, but there was nothing but the trees, which seemed to grow thicker by the minute. She came to a thicket of brambles that she couldn't pass on either side, took a breath to steady herself, and crawled in underneath the branches.

April only had to crawl a couple of yards under the thick brambles before the space cleared out, but that was enough for her clothes to become soaked and coated with mud from the stream. As she stood again, brushing herself off as much as possible, she groaned with dismay. The stream ended in a small pool and the rest of the small clearing was completely surrounded by trees and bushed. The only way out was the way she went in.

April sank to the ground, putting her head in her hands, rubbing her eyes. _Now what? Now what? Now What?_ The logical answer was to wait for light, or retrace your steps and try again, but she was so tired she didn't even want to think about hiking the entire way back to where she'd started. Instead, she examined the pool of water that had caused her all this trouble.

It was maybe six feet in diameter and didn't look much deeper than a kiddie pool like the one she'd used to swim in when she was four or five years old. There was nothing really unusual about the rocks or water that April could see, except for a soft glow, like moonlight reflecting on water. The clearing was open to the sky, but the moon was still covered by clouds. So why was the water shining like that?

April leaned closer and blew on the water. It rippled like an ordinary pool, but as the ripples spread, she saw something weird happening to her reflection. Fur sprouted across her face and ears poked out of her messy brown hair. Her fingernails had grown longer, forming two sets of long, sharp claws. Her pupils had disappeared and been replaced by slits cut into startling green irises.

April's throat contracted, trying to scream, but there was no sound. She flung herself back, breaking the connection with those bright green eyes. After a long moment in which her heart hammered wildly, she worked up the courage to look again. Her reflection stared back at her, disheveled and confused, but completely human. She peered closer, but there was nothing unusual, nothing at all.

Suddenly, there was a flash of silver at the corner of April's vision. Her head snapped around to pinpoint the movement and her hands slipped from the edge of the pool. She slipped headfirst into the water, flailing her arms wildly.

April's breath caught in her throat as she hit the water. It was deeper than she'd thought, coming up nearly to her knees, and it was _cold_. It felt like she'd just been doused in ice. She tried to stand up, but slipped and submerged completely. April sat up, shaking her head to get the water out of her eyes. The silver glow was no less than before, but she didn't feel scared, really. The shine was so much like moonlight she couldn't feel too scared.

_Oh yay. I've just fallen into a radioactive pool of water,_ she thought sarcastically,_ Do I get superpowers or something now?_

She crawled out of the water, drenched in something that still glowed faintly on her skin and clothes. April curled up on the ground, under the trees and rubbed her arms, trying to get the silver glow off her skin. She'd dried off as much as she could, but now it seemed like the glow had moved under her skin. _I should probably be worried,_ she mused numbly. A few minutes ago she would have panicked, but now she was just too cold and tired. It was dropping to a bitter temperature and she was shaking so badly that her arms and legs were jerking.

An hour ticked past.

Then another.

With each tick of the clock April got colder. Finally, something happened. At first she didn't notice anything, only a creeping pain in her legs traveling upward from her feet until her entire body was aching. Then the ache became a burning and her body turned to flame. The water and her skin were glowing burning silver, bright enough to cast shadows on the trees around her. The moon broke between the clouds and the burning silver nearly blinded her. April jerked upright and grabbed a tree for support, but her hands slipped before she could get a grip. She looked at her hands, shaking and trying to scream. Fur was sprouting along her arm and her fingers were contracting towards her palm, quickly becoming little more than stubs. Muscles writhed under her skin and she could no longer control anything she did. It felt as though her skin were being stretched tight over her skeleton, pulling so hard she was surprised the bones didn't stab through.

There was a crunch and her body arched as she howled in pain. The sound wasn't quite human, merely the tortured, strangled sound of a wild animal in pain. The shriek cut across the clearing, scraping at her bones. Another crunch, another scream. Bones were shifting inside her, breaking and re-breaking, dwindling to fit her shrinking form. Her arms and legs were contorting, her face growing into a different shape. Her fingers wouldn't open correctly; her knees and elbows wouldn't bend. She gripped at her head and felt her hair slithering, moving, and pulling itself back into her head, while something like new growth of hair burst out around the rest of her face. Her body writhed uncontrollably on the ground, her thoughts no longer coherent. _…Hurt__…Hurt…Hurt…_ The burning ticked on for seconds, minutes, she could no longer sense the passing of time, the earth and trees around her faded to little more than shadows. She was aware of nothing but the pain.

She finally lost consciousness, but her body, now barely moving, continued to change, the pain searing her even in the black tide that overwhelmed her.

With a last crunch her body fell to stillness. The burning silver glow receded and finally faded, leaving the night as silent as the grave. The moon shone down on a clearing in the trees where April lay comatose. But the light filtering through the trees showed that the human girl had disappeared.

**Congratulations! Your April has evolved into a _!**

**Review pretty please? –Puppy dog eyes-**


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